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11
Research and development, Patents and Licenses
Intellectual Property, License, Usage Rights, and Other Intangible Assets
112
Worldline
2016 Registration Document
and Other Intangible Assets
Intellectual Property, License, Usage Rights,
11.2
group, competitors or other third parties.
products and services to clients without depending on the Atos
to develop its own technological solutions and to provide its
connection with its activity. As a result, the Group is usually able
The Group owns most of the intellectual property that it uses in
of complementary rights, including the following:
The Group’s intellectual property rights comprise a combination
rights relating to technology, such as:
●
entities with access to such information,
contractual provisions that are binding on the persons or
ensured by the Group’s internal policy as well as by
know-how and trade secrets whose confidentiality is
●
software and information systems (which are protected by
●
has been registered for copyright protection purposes,
group’s intellectual property policy, most of such software
copyright) and databases. In accordance with the Atos
including Europe, the United States, Canada and India;
geographic markets where the Group is most active,
a portfolio of approximately 80 patents, filed in the
●
business.
registered in all of the countries where the Group does
names, in particular those including the name “Worldline”,
rights to distinctive marks such as trademarks or domain
●
patents) or that uses the distinctive marks locally.
technology in question (which is the Company, for certain
Luxembourg SA; or (ii) by the Group entity that developed the
These intellectual property rights are held either (i) by Worldline
confidentiality of a trade secret); (iv) where necessary, to bring
activity (for example, filing a patent or protecting the
determine the form of protection best suited to the Group’s
evaluate their potential and optimize their usage; (iii) to
intellectual property developed by the Group’s entities; (ii) to
to it.
majority of the intellectual property used by the Group belongs
independent with regard to intellectual property and that the
against the Group; and (v) to ensure that the Group remains
legal action against infringers and defend actions brought
objectives of which are the following: (i) to identify the
its own research and development projects, the primary
intellectual property policy applied by the Group with respect to
decision to file will be made in accordance with the Atos group’s
the trademarks or patents relating to the Group’s activity. The
Going forward, the Group will be responsible for filing most of
simple or cross-licenses entered into between Group entities, on
to technology belonging to third parties, including: (i) certain
has entered into only a few material license agreements relating
services provided to its clients require so. Similarly, the Group
property only on a very limited basis and only where the
In general, the Group grants licenses to use its intellectual
Corp. and its subsidiaries are licensed to the Atos group entities,
Atos SE and IBM Corp., pursuant to which all the patents of IBM
and (ii) a patent cross-license agreement entered into between
the one hand, and certain Atos group entities, on the other hand;
and its subsidiaries.
including those of the Group, are, in return, licensed to IBM Corp.
including the Group’s entities, and the Atos group’s patents,
source codes relating to the Group’s proprietary software.
unmonitored use of open-source software and disclosure of
source code developed using the open-source software. The
licenses that sometimes include an obligation to disclose the
open-source software, which may be used free of charge under
In addition, from time to time, some Group entities use
technical and a legal perspective in order to avoid the risks of
management must closely monitor such use from both a
Atos group’s internal intellectual property policy provides that
Section
20.6, “Legal Proceedings”.
disputes relating to intellectual property, as described in
The Group is involved in a small number of material legal